This invention relates to the cooling of electronic equipment. The invention has application in the cooling of computer equipment.
Electronic equipment, and computers in particular, are becoming increasingly powerful. High performance electronic systems tend to generate significant amounts of heat. Modern computer systems need cooling systems to remove the heat generated by computer components such as central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), high speed interface circuits, and the like. One of the problems faced in the cooling of modern electronic equipment is achieving adequate air flow through the case in which the equipment is housed to move heat out of the system.
Some personal computers have many fans to cause air to pass over and remove heat from hot components. For example, a modern personal computer may have a fan in the power supply, a powerful fan on a heat sink over the CPU, a fan on the (GPU) of the video card, a fan on an interface integrated circuit, and possibly an extra fan to push additional air into the case. The need to cool the components of high performance computer systems has led to the development of water and Freon based cooling systems despite the cost and complexity of such systems.
There are many significant sources of heat in a modern personal computer. In addition to the CPU and the power supply, these sources of heat can include peripheral cards (e.g. ISA, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIExpress(trademark), InfiniBand(trademark), etc.). Video cards, in particular generate significant amounts of heat.
Computer systems and certain other electronic equipment typically include a number of cards which plug into a main system board or backplane. FIG. 1 shows, for example, a typical peripheral card 10. Card 10 comprises a printed circuit board (PCB) 12 with a plate 14 attached at one of its ends. Plate 14 is typically a metal plate. Plate 14 extends at right angles to PCB 12. Plate 14 typically includes one or more connectors, and/or indicators 16 in order for users to make use of the function provided by the card (e.g. video, network, modem).
One or more connectors 18 are provided to plug card 10 into corresponding mating connectors of a main system board or backplane. As shown in FIG. 2, a main board 20 typically has a row of peripheral card connectors 22 laid out parallel to a flat side 26 of a case. Connectors 22 are positioned and oriented such that when a peripheral card 10 is plugged in, its plate 14 will line up with and be flush against an opening 30 in side 26. This construction exposes connectors and indicators 16 on plates 14 to the outside of the case for use. Openings 30 are lined up beside each other and are typically closely spaced to maximize the number of peripheral cards that can be accommodated by the case.
In some electronic equipment, the case geometry does not provide room to plug peripheral cards directly into the main system board. This is common in rack mounted equipment. In such systems, peripheral cards are mounted horizontally and plug into a separate PCB which in turn plugs into the main system board.
Where electronic equipment is mounted in vertical racks (e.g. 19xe2x80x3 and 23xe2x80x3 equipment racks), it is generally not possible to provide effective air vents on the top, bottom or sides of the equipment. It has to be assumed that there will be other equipment mounted above and below the electronic equipment in question. It has to be assumed that there will be other racks alongside the rack containing the electronic equipment in question. In most cases, the only option is to pass air through the front and back of the electronic equipment.
Providing adequate venting on the front and back faces of a rack-mounted electronic system is difficult. The front of the system may have some combination of a display device (e.g. LCD), a small keypad, pluggable disk drive cartridges, floppy drives, etc. For example, the rack mounted computer 34 shown in FIG. 3A only has air vents in the front bezels of removable disk drives 36 and 37.
FIG. 3B shows the back of computer 34. The back of rack mounted electronic systems usually have cable connectors for power, network communication, display monitors, serial communication lines, etc. The back of the system may also be encumbered by the area 40 reserved for plug-in peripheral cards. As a result of all these components it can be difficult to allocate adequate area for cooling air vents. For example, the back of computer 34 only has air vents in two power supply modules 38 and 39.
If a peripheral card slot is not being used, the opening in the case corresponding to that slot could be left open to allow for cooling air flow. This would allow electromagnetic interference (EMI) to escape from the equipment however. It is standard practice to close up the unused openings using blank metal plates.
One vendor currently offers a fan in a PCI card form factor that plugs into an empty slot in a personal computer. The fan draws air into the system through an opening in the metal plate and blows it on to other peripheral cards and through the rest of the system. This reduces the number of peripheral cards that can be accommodated.
There is a need for improved air cooling systems for electronic equipment and, particularly, for peripheral cards of electronic equipment.
This invention provides electronic equipment which includes venting openings in the vicinity of add in cards. One aspect of the invention provides electronic apparatus comprising at least first and second connectors spaced apart from one another to accommodate first and second adjacent parallel cards. The first and second connectors are located at different distances in a first direction along the first and second cards from an imaginary line extending perpendicular to the parallel cards. The apparatus includes a case. The case encloses the first and second connectors. The case has a wall which has first and second aperture-bearing portions respectively carrying first and second apertures. The apertures are respectively located to expose end portions of the first and second cards. The first and second aperture-bearing portions are at different levels in the first direction. The case includes a transitional portion between the first and second aperture-bearing portions, the transitional portion includes at least one vent aperture.
Another aspect of the invention provides electronic apparatus comprising a plurality of mutually-adjacent slots for receiving added cards. Each of the slots comprises a connector spaced-apart from an aperture-bearing portion of a case by a standard distance. The aperture-bearing portions of the case are each apertured to expose an end portion of a card, if present, in the corresponding slot. The aperture-bearing portions of the case are at a plurality of different levels relative to an imaginary line extending perpendicular to the slots. The case includes one or more transitional portions extending between adjacent aperture-bearing portions of different levels. The transitional portions including vent openings.
Further aspects of the invention and features of specific embodiments of the invention are described below.